This is our first post using an email over a radio link to update our blog. If this works, this will enable us to let you know what’s going on while we are under way, or from remote locations. Sometimes, the Internet and technology can be very cool. For me, this is one of those examples.
Starting to Get Our Feet Wet: Off to the Bahamas Soon?
Okay!?! Lisa and I are ready to try heading to the Bahamas again. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of commission for the last two weeks with serious Sciatica. The seems to be clearing up, and there’s a nice weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream later this week.
Since I’ve been out of commission for the past two weeks, we are planning to take it easy by doing two approximately 50mi hops on the first two days from Key West to Marathon and then from Marathon to Rodriguez Key off Key Largo. From there, we are expecting a 90mi hop to Bimini. The following graphic shows our planned route with the stops in pink place marks.
When most non-boaters hear this their response tends to be “Huh? Why so slow?” The answer is that Pearl moves at an average of 5 knots, or about 5.7 mph. Yup. That’s a leisurely pace. This can be further slowed by an unfavorable winds and current. The current in the Hawk Channel that we will be heading up is estimated at about 0.5 kt against us. Hmmm.
On the other hand, crossing from Rodiguez Key to Bimini, we should get about a 3kt lift to the north as the Gulf Stream seems to be ripping at the moment. What this means is we’ll be steering a course that’s about ENE to compensate.
As an aside, given that we will be using our trusty Auto Pilot (a.k.a. Otto von Helmsmann) he will likely be steering a heading rather than towards a waypoint. Why is that you ask? Steering a compass course or heading will minimize the course corrections required on a continuous basis. Yes, that’s geeky, but perhaps useful to someone.
Our current plan is to leave Key West on Wednesday and possibly cross the Stream on Friday, or perhaps Saturday depending on how things go. We expect to update our location at least daily if you want to follow along. If you decide you need to panic about our whereabouts at any time, call Jaywant, Brenda, or Chris, and then wait for about 24 hrs before you actually freak out. Note that we do have an EPIRB and Brenda and Chris are our contacts.
Let us know if you have questions, and we hope you have fun following along.
A Spitting Baby Sunfish
Living on the water, every so often you see really curious things. This is a video we took a while ago of a little sunfish that was hanging out around the docks, spitting … It’s cute. It’s kinda funny. I think he was just having fun.
Sunfish are really cool. They grow to be about 1000kg or 2200lbs. This one’s just a tiny baby. Check out the wikipedia link about them.
Here’s a little video clip of all the action.
[jwplayer mediaid=”1627″]
A Quick Shakedown Trip to Boca Grande
Having finally got the boat together, on May 02, Lisa and I decided to take Pearl down to Boca Grande, a local island about 15 mi to the west of Key West. The weather was perfect, sunny, and 85 with the wind from the SE/SSE at 17 – 22 kts which gave us a nice beam reach all the way.
We anchored about a mile north of up the channel by Boca Grande in about 20 ft of calm water. Since the wind was clocking around to the south, we wanted to be as protected as possible from the swells.
This was the first time Lisa and I had taken Pearl out just by ourselves with Harley. It was a great time, as you can see from the look on Lisa’s face despite my having back issues. One of the things we learned on this trip was that Lisa can handle most things on the boat very well, without a lot of interference from me.
The trip back to Key West was the same. A nice beam reach with the winds from the SSW this time. The boat performed flawlessly both outbound and returning to base. The davits (over which I had a mild concern re the dingy swinging around) were unnoticeable for the most part after I added an aft breast line.
Here a quick video of the trip.
[jwplayer mediaid=”1618″]
Getting to the Bahamas fom Key West
For the past 3 months or so, Lisa and I have advertized that we are in imminent “danger” of heading to the Bahamas. This tends to peak at the end of every month. We have, however, kept suffering all kinds of setbacks: the engine raw water cooling system on Pearl glitched; the dinghy started coming unglued; we needed to install davits; we were missing parts; the list goes on.
At this point, both Lisa and I have given up on “trying” to leave. Perhaps we will just … leave.
For those of you who are interested, we are considering three different “landfalls” in the Bahamas, and there are a couple of different ways to handle the trip. There is an added question of where to check in and clear customs, etc. More on that later.
Option #1 (Green): “Landfall at South Riding Rock, check in at Chub Key in the Berry Islands. This is the most aggressive approach to getting to the Bahamas, but also likely the fastest. The idea here is that one heads more or less due East out of Key West, catch the Gulf Stream off Sombrero Key Light, and ride the gulf stream all the way, get on the Bahama Bank at South Riding Rock. We’d spend the night anchored in the middle of nowhere on the Bank, and then head for Chub Key in the Berry Island Group to check in. This would be 18 – 24 hours to make landfall on the bank, and then another 10 to 16 hours to get to the Berrys depending on the current on the bank.
There are a number of people who’ve recommended this option to us, and it’s a popular route with lots of traffic (particularly on the Bahama bank). The great thing about this option is that it’s two days (roughly) to get to the crusing grounds. The downside is that if we read the weather wrong, we’re pretty exposed.
Option #2 (Red-Pink-Cyan-Orange): “Hop up the Hawk Channel to Marathon and Key Largo/Rodriguez Key, making landfall and check in in at Bimini. This option takes the longest time and is the most conservative way to make the trip. It also gives us the option of joining up with other boats making the crossing, which given our lack of experience with the Bahamas would be welcome company. This option would still require us to spend a night on the Bank getting to the Berrys, but the pace we’d be at gives us many more “fall back” options.
Option #3 (Yellow-Orange): Catch the gulf stream off of the Sombrero Key Light to Cat Cay (or Bimini), and stage there for a banks crossing. This option has the benefit of using the Gulf Stream current as it rips though the Florida Straights to accelerate our passage up the Florida Keys and onto the Bahama Bank. It also allows us to to rest up at a secure location at the end of a long transit. The time frame for this trip is the same as option #1, with the difference is that the first night stopped would be at a marina rather than on the hook, and during the first two thirds of the trip we can duck back into the Hawk Channel if necessary.
We are still figuring out which option to take, but will most likely take the third option. If you’ve done this trip, we’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions!
Getting Weather while under way
Lisa and I have still not been able to leave Key West. We’ve had an endless series of problems with the boat that have prevented us from crossing over to the Bahamas. On the positive side, it’s allowed us to fix the issues in an place that we know well, have very helpful friends, and can get the stuff we need.
Meanwhile, the delays have also given me time to figure out how to do stuff like get the sort of weather reports we would like when we want to make crossings, etc., without access to a broadband internet connection.
For those of you who don’t remember the days of dial-up internet service, that is pretty much what we have using a Pactor Modem and HF Radio (generously supplied by JCP). Anyway, accessing web pages isn’t an option. We are limited to email, and essentially the amount of data you can fit in an SMS (no pictures!).
Given that limitation, there are a couple of handy sources I’ve come up for getting the weather information I would like help us find weather windows to allow safe travels. Both of these sources are email responders that allow one get specific weather information using pre-formatted email messages. This is very exciting!
The first service is from NOAA, the National Weather Service. You can get information from them from the following URL http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/ftpmail.txt or by sending the following mail message:
Send e-mail to: ftpmail@ftpmail.nws.noaa.gov Subject Line: Put anything you like Body: help These instructions are subject to revision....download frequently.
More interestingly, a similar service is available from www.bouyweather.com, with information that’s easier to consume. One of the key features of buoyweather.com is the ability to set up “virtual buoys” from which to receive weather information. What I have done is predefine a bunch of virtual buoys at strategic locations along the routes that we plan to follow and we can get the forecast we need at will.
All you really need to do to get a 7 day forecast is to send a preformatted message to the buoyweather requesting information for a particular lat/lon and “voila!” you get a 7 day forecast with wave heights and directions, and wind speeds and directions. Following is an excerpt of what you get back.
BUOYWEATHER.COM Virtual Buoy Forecast Location : 24.5N 81.75W Model Cycle: 2014 APR 19 12Z UTC - 4 Hours ------------------------------------------------- WIND SEAS DATE HR dir/deg range(kt) dir/per range(ft) ---- --- ---------------- ------------------- 4/19 08 W 270 9 - 12 ESE 5sec 2 - 3 4/19 14 WNW 305 8 - 11 WSW 3sec 1 - 3 4/19 20 WNW 302 12 - 1 W 3sec 1 - 3 4/20 02 WNW 307 9 - 13 WNW 5sec 1 - 2 4/20 08 WNW 304 10 - 14 WNW 6sec 1 - 2 4/20 14 NW 318 8 - 11 WNW 6sec 1 - 2 4/20 20 NNW 336 7 - 10 WNW 7sec 1 - 2
I think this is slick, and it’s super useful for the way we go about setting up our routes for the Bahamas and Caribbean. Check out http://www.buoyweather.com/buoyweather/userguide.html for details.
Buoyweather also offers similar service for long passages which will give you the weather 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours out along your projected route. We don’t need this yet as we will be making much shorter hops, but it’s useful to know.
I know this is all seems pretty sailing/weather geeky, but we hope this helps any of you who read this and are planning to make voyages of any sort.
If you have weather other sources that you use over an SSB or HAM radio, or that you recommend, we’d love to hear about them.
Choosing a new Dinghy for Pearl
Sadly, we had to retire Ziply Banana Rocket, the AMI XL 300 we purchased in Portland last year. While she was new out of the box, she’d been made in 2009, which when she was relocated to the “tropics” caused some one of her tubes to leak.
As a result we decided to donate her to the Key West Community Sailing Center (a sailing co-op with the skills and resources to fix her). They plan to use her as a chase boat for the youth sailing program. “Come here little duckies!” We were very sad to see her go. The question was with what we were going to replace her.
The matrix of choices when it comes to buying a dinghy are pretty impressive.
- PVC or Hypalon
- Rigid hull Inflatable Boat or Rollup (hard or slatted floor)
- Air floor or Hard Floor
- Aluminium or Fibre glass hull RIB
- Single or double hull
The choice between PVC and Hypalon seems pretty easy. If you’re in the tropics, choose Hypalon. The issue according to a repair shop that I spoke with is that the glue used on PVC degrades in temps around 80 degrees causing the seems to fail and the tubes to leak over time. Apparently the glue used in the construction of Hypalon boats doesn’t suffer the same problem — hence the choice for us.
The choice between RIB or Roll-up has has to do with space. It’s arguable that RIBs are heavier than Roll-ups, however the roll-up we had was heavier than the RIB we have now.
Ribs are great. The are drier, plane faster, and are more robust from the perspective of driving them up on a beach. The downside is that you either need to be willing to tow it, store it on deck, or lift it on davits.
A roll-up, on the other hand will “roll up,” you can put it in a dinghy stuff sack, and turn it into a nice little package that can even be lashed on the fore deck or even stored in a locker. The down side is that they are wetter, less comfortable on long rides, and potentially less durable.
There are a couple of three choices for Roll-Up dinks, soft/air floor, slatted floor, or hard floor. We didn’t spend much time on these options because we wanted a hard floored RIB as a result of Harley. What I have heard, however, is that the high pressure floors with an inflatable keel work quite well to get you on a plane, etc. Based on personal experience, the slatted floors are not great for anything but very minimal use. The hard decks are quite nice, our previous dinghy had them and they worked very well. The only downside is that you have to find the space to store the floorboards.
If you choose a RIB, you have to decide between an Aluminium or Fiberglass hull. Aluminium is more durable than fiber glass, it is more resistant to dings than the gelcoat on the fiberglass hulls but more challenging to repair. They are also lighter! We wanted an aluminum hull but finally opted for fiberglass due to the cost ($5000 instead of $4000) and availability.
Note that there is a very affordably priced aluminum hulled Highfield RIB. We opted not to go with this as the buyer for a major online retailer who’d evaluated the dinks refused to carry them as he thought that the hull-tube bond would fail as the hull was powder coated before the tubes were glued on. I would encourage you to do your own research on this one. AB, however, has a couple of very nice but expensive aluminium hulled RIB models.
After all of that, we came up with the following criteria:
- Must be made of Hypalon: it last better than PVC in the tropics
- Must be light as it will be carried on davits
- Must be rated for a 20 hp engine: what we have–> Must be FAST! (Lisa)
After looking at several dinghies, we ended up with the following short list:
– Caribe 10X @ ~ $3500.00
– Achilles HB315DX @ $4000.00
– Zodiac Cadet 310 RIB @ $3000.00
– AB VL10 @ $4000.00
– Highfield UL 310/340 @ $3000.00
The general consensus among the cruisers and sales people we spoke with was get either a Caribe, Avon, or AB. Our initial preference was to get the Caribe 10X which is double hulled, has a bow, locker, etc. When we looked at a Westmarine 340 which had a bow locker, the locker seemed pretty pointless, and it seemed like we be better off and save the weight by getting a “single hull. Also, the “single hull” on the AB isn’t really accurate as the VL has a flat floor.
While we did not personally inspect and test all five choices, what we did find out was that it’s really hard to get Caribes any more as they come out of Venezuela. We also found out that dinghy sales people were remarkably disinterested in selling product in this price range. The notable exceptions were Adam and Mike at the Inflatable Boat Center in Portland, OR and Jeff at Lifeline Inflatables in Miami from which we purchased our dink.
What we finally purchased and extremely happy with is an AB VL 10. It has the right combination of features for us and most importantly, seems to be very well put together. Stay tuned for pics and video of our new dink!
What you have above are a lot of my opinions and I’ve made a number of generalizations that you should take for what they are worth. On the off chance you are buying a dinghy, I hope they will give you some food for thought. If you have navigated this process yourself, I would love to hear you thoughts and opinions.
Our 9 Best Upgrades to Pearl for Cruising
We are finally done with boat projects and upgrades to Pearl to make our cruising life more comfortable. After all the theorizing, what we actually have done follows:
1. Dinghy Davits
Lisa and I decided that davits were a “must have.” There are several reasons for this:
(a) Improved boat performance: you don’t end up dragging the dink, allowing the boat to move a knot or so faster.
(b) Safety: you have an easily deployed life raft if necessary. Yes, we have a seperate life raft, but ….
(c) Security: dinghies are better stored “on board” than in the water; needing to climb aboard a boat to cut a dinghy free tends to deter prospective thieves.
The davits we finally settled on are from Garhauer Marine. They are very well made, and I highly recommend them.
2. A Hypalon Dinghy
Sadly, Ziply Banana Rocket, the Yellow AMI XL 300 PVC dinghy we purchased last year started to fail. This was due to the glue that holds the boat together being eroded by the heat and UV in Florida. Given that a dinghy is a critical piece if equipment when cruising, we opted to purchase an AB RIB (Rigid hull Inflatable Boat).
The big deal with hypalon vs. PVC fabric in the tropics isn’t about the fabric itself. It has to do with the glue that holds the fabric together. According to a inflatable boat wright (?) I chatted with, PVC glue start to fail at about 80 F. Since one is consistently above that temp in the tropics, PVC boats tend to fail sooner rather than later as we saw with the AMI.
3. Upgraded Navionics
Given that the Raymarine Pathfinder Radar had started to glitch and that charts for the chart plotter were pretty expensive, we decided to upgrade all of the navigation electronics and radar, and add in AIS display capability. Oddly enough this was less expensive than buying the electronic chart kits for where we wanted to go cruising. The net result is improved visibility of surrounding traffic as well as less expensive charts!
4. Foredeck Shade
Given that we haven’t added a high capacity generator to Pearl, we figured we’d go with a low tech solution: a deck shade that keeps the sun off the fore deck. Surprisingly, the shade noticably drops the temp in the V berth. Also, the shade is well enough constructed and laced on that we leave it up during storms — for which it can also serve as a rain catcher if required. The shade was definitely worth the $ 380 it cost to get made.
5. Filters on the fuel systems
We’ve added a Racor 500 filter on Pearl. This replaced the Racor 230 (?) that came standard. Additionally we’ve opted to add a couple of fuel shutoff vales to this to facilitate filter replacement rather than running a dual filter system. While I gather you can use vise grips on the fuel lines when changing filters instead of having shut off valves, that seemed a bit dodgy to me.
We’ve also added a Racor 120 gasoline filter for the outboard that will hopefully minimize problems there.
6. “Eye Lids” for the Portlights
Keeping the port light open when it rained was a bit of an issue. It made the boat stuffy and uninhabitable. We’ve added “eyelids” for the port lights which mostly keep the rain out of the boat. These cost appromimately $50 each from Portshade.com and were super easy to install. This was another worthwhile investment as it keeps the boat ventilated.
7. Marine VHF with AIS / Digital Selective Calling
We upgraded the original I-Com to a Standard Horizon Matrix AIS+. There are a couple of cool features to this change. The first is that it has Digital Selective Calling, which enables you to call a specific vessel based on their MMSI number (which most commercial vessels advertise via AIS). The second is that it integrates with the Raymarine e7D and a67 chart plotter/MFDs to provide enable AIS displays on the chart plotter. So, now we can identify the vessel we need to call and reach them directly.
It would be slick to be able to be able to tap the AIS icon on the chart plotter to have a call placed, but that seems way over the top at the moment.
7. Upgraded Bilge Pumps
Pearl came equiped with an approximately 200 gph bilge pump. I hadn’t really thought about what that really meant until I sat down and figured out how much water we’d take on if one of the sea cocks or through hulls failed. That calculation resulted us adding a 2000 gph bilge pump that is plumbed into the boat as well as a 4000 gph portable bilge pump. A couple of things to note are that what bilge pumps are rated for and how much they actually put out depend on the input battery voltage, how far the water’s being lifted, and I believe, how many plastic buckets one has.
8. Flooded to AGM Batteries
Pearl originally had 200 Ah house battery bank, We’ve upped this to 520 Ah, and changed from flooded batteries to maintenance free AGMs. We figured that AGMs are better for a a few reasons: the first is that they don’t require maintenace, the second is that they are more resistant to being bounced around. The third is that they can be drawn down without damaging the cells.
9. Electric Pump on the Head
Ok. The head in this case is the toilet. We decided to replace the Jabsco hand pump with en electric macerator pump to clear the toilet bowl as we seemed to have interminable problems with the joker valves on the manual pump. This is a nasty mess on which you don’t need the details. The short version is that we a quite happy with the result.
There are several other little tweaks we’ve made — e.g. adding a plexiglass splash guard to the galley sink, a clothes line in the head, etc. The upgrades listed above are our best guess at our most important improvements for cruising.
We’d love to hear from you if you have suggestions based on you experiences!
Key West to The Dry Tortugas (and back)
Tampa to Key West
Content coming soon!
Update: Not crossing the Gulf Stream on Thursday
After chatting with a bunch of people who’ve crossed to the Bahamas several times, Lisa and I have decided to hold off on heading out on Thursday. While there seems to be a weather window this week, conventional wisdom suggest that we find a 3 day window when we can leave Key West.
While we theoretically could leave earlier and safely make our crossing, we are waiting on dinghy davits that we ordered. The davits are scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday. It should take a day or so to install them. We really want the davits as they will allow us to get the dinghy out of the water. Towing a dinghy across the Gulf Stream just does not sound like fun.
Since Lisa and I are looking forward to a boring an dun eventful crossing, we are holding off on our departure and working on our interminable list boat projects.
If you’d like to check out one of the weather sites we are using to determine when we go, check out http://passageweather.com and go to West Indies / South Florida.
Upgrading Pearl for Extended Travel
So having hung around the marinas for a while, lived on the boat, and generally tried to adapt to cruising life, I’ve come up with a list of stuff with which to upgrade Pearl. There is a magic balance here. On the one hand I don’t want so much gear on board that I can’t swing a cat. On the other, there are things — like water — that can be a serious pain in the posterior to acquire when traveling abroad.
My design goal here is to be able to project Pearl an unspecified distance for an undetermined period — single handed. Note that short of building a “generation” spaceship replete with an farm on board, this is not very realistic. It does, however, pose interesting questions regarding energy consumption/production, water (!!!), and crew workload/rest.
It’s useful to note that people have traveled in sailboats for a long time without any of the stuff that I am considering adding, and that there are fail-safe behavioral rather than technological solutions to all of the problems I am trying to solve.
To this end, there are three projects upgrades to Pearl that I think would be useful, which I will discuss individually as they evolve.
Project #1: Power Generation
Pearl currently has only two energy sources on board — her sails which are used for propulsion, and the her diesel engine which is an auxiliary propulsion system as well as the source for generating electrical power that is stored in batteries. There isn’t an issue with the propulsion systems. The big question has to do with electrical power for all of the conveniences that are “must haves” on board.
There are three options for supplementary electrical power — a gas or diesel generator, a wind generator, and solar panels. There are two parts to this equation: demand and supply. The magic I am trying to figure out at the moment is how to increase the renewable power supply from solar and/or wind, cut demand, keep up with the power requirements for snazzy electronic gear while under sail, and find a place to park the batteries required for power storage.
Project #2: Water Maker
This is a really sore topic that I am in the process of researching. On the one hand, the dock-side scuttlebutt is that you can’t live without a water maker, particularly if you don’t have giant water tanks 200 – 400 gallons, and particularly in the Bahamas. Pearl carries “only” 100 gallons of water. While I figured I could use 3 – 5 gals of fresh water per person per day. This still makes for water stops every 10 days to 2 weeks. There is also the option of supplemental water (e.g. bottled) for drinking, jerry cans, and a rain catcher (?!?). Stay tuned on the story behind this one.
Project #3: Navionics
Pearl currently has a great chartplotter, autopilot, depth sounder/sonar, radar, and radios (VHF and HAM/SSB). The dodgy bit is that the chart plotter is old, the Jeppesen charts for it are egregiously expensive (more expensive than the cost of new gear for the east cost alone), and the radar is essentially dead. The current generation of that gear is pretty slick and offers a bunch of interesting safety enhancements like integrated AIS (think transponders for ships) and MARPA based radar guard zones that allow you of potential collisions and threats. Oh, and all of this can be displayed on an iPhone or iPad, as a bonus.
Stay tuned. More to come.